


When you come back again

by iriswallpaper



Series: Heartaches By The Number [11]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Caring John, Cheating, Detailed description of surgical site, Emotional Infidelity, Hurt/Comfort, Infidelity, M/M, Morally Ambiguous Character, Season/Series 03, Sherlock comes home from hospital, everyone is morally bankrupt, scenes in between/concurrent with S3 on-screen events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 05:34:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5731285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iriswallpaper/pseuds/iriswallpaper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock's home from hospital and John's his personal physician. They both know they need to have The Very Important Talk, but these things are hard for both of them.</p><p> </p><p>Scene-based fics that are concurrent with events in S3. This is not an S3 fix-it fic.</p><p>HEED THE TAGS because everyone is morally bankrupt in this fic.</p><p>Title from the song "Heartaches by the Number."</p>
            </blockquote>





	When you come back again

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to MissDavis and Dulcimer Gecko for beta of this installment.

_Yes, I've got heartaches by the number, a love that I can't win_  
_But the day that I stop counting, that's the day my world will end_

 

Mrs. Hudson opened the front door with a sad smile. “Sherlock! Come in, come in.” She stepped back to hold the door. Sweating and pale, leaning heavily on Mycroft, Sherlock crossed over the threshold to Baker Street for the first time in three and a half weeks. After one bullet, two surgeries and two code blues.

They paused at the bottom of the stairs: Sherlock, Mycroft, John and Mrs. Hudson. Sherlock looked up the stairs and grimaced. The surgeons had wanted him to remain in hospital for another week but he’d insisted that he was well enough to come home. And when John reminded them that he was Sherlock’s personal physician, they’d signed the discharge orders - glad to be rid of their demanding patient. John went up first, followed by Mycroft, who half-hauled-half-carried Sherlock, then Mrs. Hudson and her everpresent sounds of distressed affection.

Mycroft settled Sherlock on the sofa with the living room pillows piled behind him while Mrs. Hudson made tea and John fetched a glass of water and pain pills for Sherlock. He’d taken one just two hours before but the ride home and climb to 221B had taken a visible toll on him and left him tight lipped and trembling. The pills and water went down easily but Sherlock refused tea. He dropped his head onto the back of the sofa and closed his eyes while the other three had a cup of tea. Mrs. Hudson and Mycroft beat a speedy retreat after. 

Sherlock had fallen asleep, wrung out by the exertion of the day and opioids. John stood in the doorway to the kitchen and watched him fondly for a moment then went into Sherlock’s bedroom and turned down the covers. He’d made the bed up with fresh sheets that morning and brought down the pillows from the upstairs bedroom. Sherlock’s respiratory therapist had sent home a foam wedge with John the day before. Together with the pillows, it would provide Sherlock with a sufficient elevation to sleep comfortably. John had wanted to hire a hospital bed but Sherlock had resisted vehemently. The foam wedge and extra pillows were their compromise.

Stooping over Sherlock’s too-thin form, John gently shook his shoulder. “Sherlock. You’ll be more comfortable in bed. C’m on.”

Sherlock made a muffled sound and turned his head away from John’s voice. 

Knowing that Sherlock would be out cold for hours from the double dose of pain meds, John faced a decision: leave him on the sofa to develop a crick in his neck or haul him to the bedroom and risk tearing his wound. But, it had been three weeks since the last surgery - the chest tube had come out two weeks ago and the last stitches a week after that. Sufficient time had passed for scar to form a strong enough bond that a little jostling wouldn’t harm Sherlock. 

With a firm arm around his shoulders, John hauled Sherlock to his feet. Sherlock surfaced from his drug-sleep enough to stumble next to John as he lead him down the hall and to stand still while John removed his too-loose shirt and too-baggy trousers. When Sherlock was down to his pants, John helped him into bed and carefully arranged the pillows behind him. 

John stood beside the bed, indecisive. It was only four o'clock but he hesitated to leave Sherlock alone. After weeks of trudging between Baker Street and the hospital, he felt oddly out of place now. He could wash up the few dishes in the sink or perhaps read a chapter of the novel he’d been halfheartedly reading for weeks while he sat vigil in Sherlock’s hospital room. It wasn’t necessary to continue the vigil now that Sherlock was home. John could move about the flat and still hear any sounds from the bedroom. But Sherlock looked so pale, so thin, his lips bleached nearly as pale as his cheeks by the afternoon sunlight, and John didn’t want to leave him.

He jerked his jumper over this head then quickly shed his shirt and jeans, came around to the other side of the bed and slipped in. He nestled carefully against Sherlock, one arm around his waist, hand spread on Sherlock’s prominent hipbone.

“John?” Sherlock’s voice was thick with narcotic.

“Yeah, I’m here.” John settled a little closer to Sherlock’s side.

“Hmmm. Good.” 

Laying beside Sherlock, listening to him breathe, John drifted, not really asleep and not really awake, not thinking of anything. He’d developed the ability to merely exist during Sherlock’s hospital stay. The anxiety of what to do about Mary and their entire fucked up situation settled around his throat when he did think and tried to choke him. It was nice to focus his mind on the rise and fall of Sherlock’s chest and the gentle susurrus of the of the breath through his nose. 

It was a miracle, really, that Sherlock was lying here, breathing. John’s hand curled around Sherlock’s hip and, for the first time since he’d learned three and a half weeks ago that his best friend had been shot, and three weeks ago that his wife had pulled the trigger, John let the grief he’d held at bay wash over him. Silent tears wetting his pillow, John drifted off.

 

~*~

 

“John.”

Jerked awake by Sherlock’s raspy voice, John was disoriented. Streetlight came through the window. He was overwarm from being pressed against Sherlock’s side and his neck hurt from the odd angle forced by the many pillows. 

“John.”

Understanding flooded his mind: _Sherlock’s home!_ John eased himself a bit away from Sherlock’s side. “You okay?”

Sherlock swallowed, twice. Very quietly he asked, “Can you fetch a pain pill?”

John eased his hand away from Sherlock’s hip and slipped out of the bed. His dressing gown hung from the hook on the back of the door; he shrugged it on and left the room wordlessly, returning a few minutes later with a tall glass of water and a white tablet. He helped Sherlock to sit and used the loo while Sherlock took the pill and drained the glass. When John returned to the bedroom, he sat on the side of the bed and picked up Sherlock’s wrist, taking his pulse, and felt his forehead with his other hand.

“Better?”

Sherlock nodded. John’s hand slid from his forehead to his cheek. Sherlock’s eyes were intensely blue in the dim light. They hadn’t talked about any of it. They hadn’t really talked at all. For the past three and half weeks, John had spent at least 12 hours of each 24 in Sherlock’s hospital room, but Sherlock had spent the time drifting in a morphine haze. John didn’t fault him that - the pain must be horrible. Ruptured liver, inferior vena cava torn, three ribs shattered, plus the second surgery that had been even more extensive than the first. And cutting through the abdominal wall muscles left a patient in pain for weeks. John didn’t even mention to the doctors that Sherlock was a former user and neither did anyone else - Mycroft, Sherlock’s parents or Mrs. Hudson. They all seemed to look to John for direction in the matter, and John thought the more relief Sherlock could have, the better.

Now they were home at Baker Street and they still hadn’t had the Very Important Conversation that they both knew that needed to take place. John cleared his throat and slid his hand to Sherlock's neck to tease the curl at Sherlock’s nape with his fingertips. “Is it okay? That I stayed here.”

Sherlock spoke, eyes closed. “I assume you’ll be going home now that I’m released from hospital.”

“Sherlock.” John’s voice was full, near to bursting with all he felt. “I am home.”

Sherlock’s eyes slid slowly open, irises nearly obliterated by the hydrocodone-dilated pupils. Sherlock breathed evenly and watched John without answering.

“I haven’t been.” John stopped, swallowed. “I haven’t been back to her house since that night. I’ve been here.” He grinned sheepishly. “Sleeping in your bed, if you must know the whole of it.”

“Why?”

“It made me feel better. Like things were, I don’t know.” John glanced down at the gauze dressing on Sherlock’s chest. “Like things were as they should have been.”

“John.” Sherlock’s voice was low and thick. 

John glanced up, once again pinned by Sherlock's gaze. He breathed, lips slightly apart, and looked into Sherlock’s eyes. He had nothing more to say. He was home.

Sherlock carefully lifted his hand. With a sigh, John slid into the bed beside him, laying his head on the pillows beside Sherlock’s shoulder. Sherlock shifted, wincing, to adjust his position to so that John’s cheek touched his shoulder. 

“I’m glad you’re here,” Sherlock’s voice was barely a whisper.

John nuzzled Sherlock’s shoulder slowly, careful not to jostle the carefully-arranged pillows. “I’m glad, too.”

There was more they needed to discuss, things heavy and round in the air between them, but both men were rung out. They were content to share each other’s warmth and simply breathe.


End file.
